Is this the lightest gravel bike in the world?

Ollie Bridgewood recently had the opportunity to take a closer look at what’s possibly the lightest gravel bike in the world. The creator of this feathery bike is Oleg Kononov from Twisted Wheels who we’ve featured here before with some equally ridiculous lightweight builds, including his custom-built Specialized Aethos and Syre gravel bikes.

Last year we checked out Oleg’s Syre gravel bike, which at the time was claimed to be the lightest functional gravel bike in the world. This meant that although there might have been lighter ‘gravel bikes’ out there, all of them achieved this lightweight status at the detriment of capability.

This year Oleg is back and he’s taking things one step further. Using a Specialized S-Works Crux as a chassis this new custom build is vying for the out-and-out title of lightest gravel bike in the world.

Read more: Is this the world’s lightest functional gravel bike?

As you might expect from a bike which such bold claims, very little on this bike is standard with everything being optimised to be as light as possible. The frame is not exempt from this with the 56cm frame being sanded back to its raw carbon finish as paint can be surprisingly heavy. In this instance the paint on the Crux is claimed to only weigh 30 grams but in in a build where every gram counts, it has to go.

Towards the front of the frame, the raw carbon finish has been hidden away under a Cerakote finish which is very hardwearing but also very lightweight. Although this might be the lightest gravel bike in the world it has still been built to be ridden off-road, so the Cerakote finish acts as a protective barrier to the raw carbon. In its finished state, the frame hits the scales at 710 grams.

Internal cable routing

The Specialized Crux comes as standard with semi-integrated cable routing with the cables or brake hoses entering the frame just behind the head tube. To keep a clean aesthetic, Oleg made the decision to fully internally route the hoses on this Crux.

Doing this took some modifications which included filling and smoothing the ports on the side of the frame as well as cutting a slot in the rear of the steerer to allow the brake hose to exit into the frame. As a result of removing this material the steerer of the fork needed to be reinforced to retain its structural integrity.

The front hose is routed through the stem and into the steerer where it travels down through the leg of the fork to the calliper. The result is a very clean bike with only very small sections of hose exposed by the callipers before they quickly enter the frame.

Weight weenie finishing kit

Even the smallest components on this bike have been optimised to save weight. The lower headset spacer has been 3D-printed to shave off a few crucial grams whilst the headset bolt has been hollowed out removing all unnecessary material. Although none of these choices amount to much on their own, when totalled up together the savings are significant.

Another area that has been put on a crash diet is the saddle clamp. The upper clamping plate has been switched out for a super lightweight alternative that strips away all the surplus material leaving two bars as the link between the saddle rails.

Read more: Super lightweight bike tech: is this 3.6kg bike the lightest in the world?

SRAM Red AXS groupset

At the time that this bike was built, SRAM had not released its new Red AXS groupset and as a result, Oleg had fitted a hybrid Red/Force groupset. The decision to fit the second-tier Force shifters was made because of the different ergonomics of the levers and the fact that there was no weight penalty in doing so. This again highlights that the bike is designed to be functional rather than just a super lightweight museum piece.

What you can’t see from the outside is that the lever clamps have been replaced with carbon fibre clamps, saving 20 grams over the standard metal ones. Even with the modified levers the newly released SRAM Red AXS groupset does weigh less than the generation fitted to the bike meaning that there’s more weight to be saved in future.

Read more: Lightweight vs aero – which bike climbs faster?

Looking at the rear derailleur it’s clear that it’s far from standard. Starting with a SRAM Red XPLR derailleur, Oleg stripped and replaced a lot of the derailleur to save weight. The cage was replaced with a carbon one from Concept Company UK with some oversized pulley wheels from Extralite. Finishing the derailleur’s modifications is the use of a full carbon parallelogram plate made by UK-based tech company Hope.

One last bit of crazy tech from the groupset is the use of an extra small AXS battery that saves 10 grams over a regular SRAM battery.

Super light wheels

A bike’s wheels are somewhere that a lot of weight can be saved. On this super light gravel bike, Oleg decided to fit a set of Light Bicycle AR25 wheels with carbon fibre spokes and Extralite Hyper Smart hubs. The complete wheelset weighs in at just 840 grams which by most standards would be considered light for a single wheel.

Schwalbe Furious Fred

Another area that points to the functionality of the bike is the use of Schwalbe’s Furious Fred mountain bike tyres. At a measured 49mm width and with plenty of rubber for grip, Oleg certainly could have fitted lighter tyres to the bike to drop the weight down even further. However, the desire to ensure this bike is capable off-road meant the tyres were an area worth a few extra grams.

Read more: 8 standout bikes from the UK Hill Climb Championships

Elilee carbon cranks

Heading up the bike’s drivetrain are X320 cranks from the relatively unknown brand Elilee. At just 274 grams they are claimed to be the lightest direct mount crankset on the market. Paired with this is a single chainring from Garbruck that was designed specifically for this crankset. The total weight of the cranks and chainring combined is 344 grams which is a remarkable saving over SRAM’s own Red crankset that weighs 574 grams.

To find out even more about this one-of-a-kind bike and most importantly to find out exactly how much it weighs, make sure to watch the video linked at the top of this page. What do you think of this super light gravel bike? Let us know in the comments below.